About Us

meet the team

Purchased in 2002, Fairhill Farm is home to Mike and Debbie O'Donnell.

Mike and Debbie moved to Australia from New Zealand after finding the perfect location to establish their new business.

Situated at Mulbring on 130 acres of undulating land backing onto the State forest below Mt Sugarloaf and Mt Vincent, Fairhill Farm is approximately 40 minutes drive from Newcastle, 60 minutes from the start of the F3 Freeway (near Hornsby) and just 1.5 hours from the major horse centre of Scone in the heart of the Hunter Valley. The area receives good annual rainfall (double that of the Upper Hunter), while an ongoing pasture improvement scheme and regular testing ensures grass protein levels that are exceptional.

Hands on management by the people who own and run the farm means your horse is in good hands, with all horses inspected a minimum of twice daily.

Our Staff

Sandy Marjoribanks been with us since October 2014.

She handles weanlings, yearlings and spelling race horses. Does all gardening, lawns and stable work.

Sandy also helps out during late nights of foaling down, when Mike has to go to stud with a mare for cover, so that Deb has another pair of hands and eyes at a very important time of year.

Regular dog sitter for Sophie and Polly when Mike and Deb get a chance to go to the Races.

Darlene Evans has been with us since December 2015.

Handles weanlings, yearlings and spelling race horses. Does a lot of maintenance around the farm, troughs, fences and is always fixing the feed bins that the horses love to play with and break. She also does stable work and holds horses for Jason the farrier.

Darlene also helps with foals, and brings in the mares to the crush during the breeding season.

Always on call for Deb, to bring the milk and bread in the morning when she hasn’t had time to get to the shop, so we can have a nice cup of tea at breakfast.

Mollie Lennon has been with us since August 2017.

She had been with us for work experience during her normal course of education during home schooling and is now part of the team.

She doesn’t handle the horses yet, but makes up a very good bag of hay, and makes the water troughs nice and clean for the horses in the stables. Mollie chases up the foals that don’t follow their mums on the way to the crush, and helps Sandy weed gardens.

Mollie is also a very talented artist and paints beautifully.

Sam Wharton has been with us since beginning of March 2018.

Sam came to us through a Tafe work experience course on Veterinary nursing.

She also helps in the stables and is becoming more comfortable doing all types of farm duties and calms the weanlings in theboxes, when their mates have gone for a walk.

Outside Help

Jason Metcalfe

Jason has been our only Farrier since we started Fairhill Farm in 2002. Jason is a major part of our team, especially when it comes to the mechanics of the foal’s legs and hooves from the day they are born until they are sold.

Jason cares for our older mares that need special attention, Campbell Fever being one of those mares, that suffered from Laminitis that Jason kept sound until the day she passed away, not from bad feet but an old heart.

The work he does on foals is extremely important and with his attention to detail we avoid surgery in almost all cases, just by trimming and extensions to ensure the legs are good.

Peter Tabak – Hunter River Veterinary Services Pty Ltd.

He is wonderful with the mares in the crush and has a very high success rate of getting the mares in foal and loves a particularlydifficult case to really use his expertise on.

Brett Warren – Central Coast Equine Vet Practice.

Brett does all our sales x-rays and regularly visits the farm to help with his knowledge on pastoral improvement.

Terry Drayton

Terry does all our breaking in and pre-training of our horses for racing.

He is a very important part of our system and works in well with our Farm and trainers, getting the best out of our young horses, without pressure. The horses always come home from his stable in fabulous condition and very well educated.

Terry is based at Newcastle Race Track.

Lisa Clarke

Lisa has a very important role of the initial education of the foals prior to weaning from Mum. Lisa handles all the foals and puts them through her wonderful lessons.

They are so very calm and relaxed with her, and when she has completed their education, they have been rugged, washed, taught to have farrier work done while on a lead, walk and stand for treatments. They are well behaved and completely at ease.

Tim Cone – D-C Freeze Branding

Tim does all our Freeze branding and is such an expert we fly through the procedure without any worries and the weanlings remain calm.

Cone Horse Transport

Wayne Cone has been looking after the safe delivery of our progeny in his lovely truck for many years.

All hours of the day or night he sets of with our precious cargo destined for the Thoroughbred Horse Sales.

suppliers

Farmers Warehouse

We purchase the majority of all products we require to maintain the property, from Farmers warehouse at Rutherford. Their team is very helpful and obliging to get deliveries to us when we need them.

We use Prydes feeds and specialist products from Horse Power.

Don and Shirlyn Howard

Don and Shirlyn have supplied us with wonderful Lucerne Hay and straw for our stables, for more than 15 years.